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Equally impressive are accompanying data indicating that five of our current top-ten funded faculty are women. In fact, while women represent 46% of our faculty overall, they represent only 37%, 37% and 40%, respectively, of the Ladder Rank, In-Residence and Clinical X series where Principal Investigators are most typically found.
Among them is Angela Haczku, who since 2017 has been the Associate Dean for Translational Research for the SOM. We have recently designated Haczku’s position with a new title as the Associate Dean for Research Infrastructure to reflect her responsibilities more closely. In this role, Haczku will design and develop an action plan for SOM core facilities, advise on investments from SOMOR resources, and support efforts to seek joint research training support for residents with the School of Veterinary Medicine.
We are also delighted to announce the addition of another outstanding woman to the SOMOR leadership team, with approval of Rachael Callcut’s appointment as Associate Dean for Data Science and Innovation. Callcut has already made significant contributions on an interim basis as the SOM’s first Chief Research Information Officer, a role that will be folded into her new deanship. She will play an expanded role in directing research informatics efforts and workforce development in data science. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Callcut as she assumes this pivotal position.
I’d also like to give a shout out to the Women in Medicine and Health Sciences group currently led by Dr. Melissa Bauman. The group’s efforts have significantly advanced professional opportunities for women faculty, including the recent milestone of reaching 300 female Full Professors. UC Davis School of Medicine can only thrive with full and equitable participation of all groups. Indeed, a study by Yang et al. recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined 6.6 million papers published across all medical sciences since 2000 and concluded that author teams exhibiting gender diversity published work that was both more novel and more impactful. Further, while the fraction of publications produced by mixed gender teams has grown rapidly, such teams continue to be underrepresented compared to the numbers of men and women in the field.
These interesting findings should persuade us to re-double our efforts to support the careers of our female colleagues, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also as a strategy to further strengthen the impact that research from UC Davis SOM will have on the future of biomedical science.
Kim E. Barrett
Vice Dean for Research
School of Medicine
Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Membrane Biology
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